In <i>Get Out</i>, the Eyes Have It
This post includes spoilers for the entirety of Get Out.
One of the most popular promotional images of the new horror-comedy film Get Out is that of a young black man staring straight at the camera. Little details stand out about him if you look long enough—he’s wearing a gray hoodie and T-shirt, there’s a slight crease on his forehead—but these are otherwise hard to really notice because of his eyes, which are wide and wet and red and give the unmistakable impression of a person frozen in pure, cold fear.
As the protagonist of , Chris Washington tells a great deal of the story using only his eyes. This is of course a testament to the excellent work of the actor, Daniel Kaluuya, who plays him. But it’s also evidence of the film’s subtle obsession with ways of seeing—whether through cameras or through (literally)follows Chris as he meets his girlfriend’s parents for the first time at their secluded home far from the city. The girlfriend, Rose Armitage (played perfectly by Allison Williams), is white, and Chris is a little nervous about how her family will react despite her reassurances to him (“They’re not racists. I have told you”). Throughout the film, the director Jordan Peele uses the sense of sight to amplify imbalances of power and control—imbalances often drawn along racial lines.
